No one deserves to go to Hell. According to the Bible, Hell is a lake of burning sulfur. It's probably several thousand degrees. Not to mention the fact that Hell must expand as more souls enter it each day, so the temperature could actually be increasing. But no matter the exact temperature of the burning lake, I'm here to argue that no one, not even Hitler, deserves Hell. Let's use Hitler as an example, because if I prove he doesn't deserve Hell, I think we can assume no one else does either.

I'll provide you with some approximated statistics. The exact numbers don't matter all that much. About eleven million people died in the Holocaust. Now, the natural life expectancy during that time period was about 65. Let's assume there was an even distribution of ages (0-65) throughout the victims of the Holocaust. About 167,000 people from each of the age groups died. So 167,000 newborns were robbed of 65 years of life, 167,000 one-year-olds were robbed of 64 years of life, and so on. So each victim was robbed of 33 years of life on average, or all of the victims were collectively robbed of 363,000,000 years of life, depending on how you want to look at it. And, of course, I haven't even accounted for the suffering caused to the Holocaust survivors (and the suffering of the dead victims BEFORE they died).

Now, it would be justifiable to rob Hitler of 363 million years of life, would it not? Unfortunately, that's completely impossible. Even if we had managed to find and execute Hitler before he died, his crime would have dwarfed the meager punishment we were able to deal out. Some might argue that he is now getting exactly what he deserves in Hell. But let's think about that for a moment.

The other day, I picked up a firework on the Fourth of July and burned by thumb. (I know, I know, it wasn't very responsible of me!) Anyway, it hurt pretty badly. I shudder to think about having that pain in every part of my body. But when I think about having that pain in my body permanently, and at several hundred times the intensity, the pain I would be enduring is inconceivable. I'm sure most people here can relate. We've all burned ourselves on hot stoves or open flames before.

Take a moment to try to grasp what "forever" means. Imagine experiencing the pain of burning your fingers on a match, except put that pain in every nerve of your body. Now multiply that pain by a few hundred times. Now imagine having to withstand that burning for ten seconds. One minute. Ten minutes. One hour. A day. A week. A year. Two years. Five years. Ten years. A hundred years. A thousand years. A million years. Five trillion years. Even a few hours could drive a person to insanity. But think about trillions of years passing by, and you are no closer to being relieved from the pain. Think of a quadrillion years times a quintillion years times a Googolplex years, feeling the burning of the sulfur as intensely as you felt it at the beginning of your torment.

Furthermore, punishment is meant to deter future crimes, and since those who are in Hell are already dead, they are being tortured pointlessly. I fail to see the purpose in this. It seems to be simply a product of God's vengeance and sadism. Although in his defense, he is immortal, and perhaps does not realize that time seems to pass more slowly for humans than it does for him. If God is immortal, then a second to him is an infinite amount of time to us, and he probably has no concept of how long forever actually is. Regardless, no one deserves Hell whether God realizes what he's doing to the damned or not.

If you try to convince me that Hitler actually deserves this punishment, a punishment of far greater torment than he ever delivered to any other humans, lasting an INFINITE amount of time longer than the mere 363 million years of life he stole, then you have indeed no moral compass. I would even categorize you as dangerous or unstable. But not even you deserve Hell. No one deserves Hell. Not the Devil, not even God, who puts people there in the first place.

I dare you to prove me wrong. I dare you to conceive of a crime that could be worthy of even a million years in Hell.

Before I open the floor to discussion, let me say that I understand some people may know in the back of their minds that Hell is wrong, but they would never admit it for fear of going there themselves. While I think it's sad that anyone could delude themselves to being so fearful, I would also ask that anyone who agrees with me, but doesn't want to admit it, not argue against me. I'm looking to debate anyone who genuinely believes some people deserve Hell. If you don't want to agree with me for fear of angering God, just push that thought further into the back of your mind and forget you ever saw this post.

I'm assuming you haven't given this speech to anyone who lost loved ones to Hitler's evil regime?

I have met actual Holocaust survivors, and no, I haven't given this speech to them. I just made it up when I wrote it, in fact. Are you afraid they would take offense? Because I'm sure if they are survivors, they already know far better than I do what happened at the Holocaust.

I suppose we might just have to agree to disagree on this point, but the way I see it, when those involved in the justice system of the United States, for example, put someone in jail, they're doing it to teach the criminal not to commit further crimes. If they put them in jail for life or execute them, they're doing it so they won't ever have the chance to commit crimes again. I suppose one could argue that everyone deserves some sort of punishment for evil deeds, just for the sake of retribution, but then it really just loses practical purpose, and only serves to satisfy the vengefulness of those giving the punishment.

I think its unfortunate that you choose to speak of the holocaust like its "a mere 363 million years of life that (Hitler) stole" I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you realise that it was a time in history that words cannot completely describe the terrible suffering.

But I see a problem with your logic, it seems like if you were judge you would just get out your calculator...
"Tell me how long the bad man beat you little boy?"
"2 hours a day for 7 days?"
"Ok... lets see... thats (scribbles on notepad) carry the one..."
"Fourteen hours in prison!"
"Next case"

Please, don't think I'm trying to make the Holocaust appear to be less horrific than it was. If I was describing it out of this context I would put much more emotion and tragedy into my statements. However, what I meant was, compared to infinite torture, it is nothing. As for my logic in dealing out punishment, I'm only speaking in terms of punishment for the sake of punishment, not punishment in the real world. To use your example, if a man beat a child for 14 hours over the course of a week, he would deserve a similar treatment, perhaps a bit worse. That would be "fair". But in the real world, he would need to be put in jail for a long time, because beating him for about 14 hours wouldn't do any good. It wouldn't serve to deter him from beating more kids in the future.

But even if you don't accept any of that logic involving the man-beating-child example, it doesn't really matter, because that example isn't even comparable to torturing a man for all eternity because he ordered millions of people to die.

I don't care how many trillions upon trillions of years of life were lost because people were killed and prevented from having children who were prevented from having children and so on. Infinite punishment for finite crimes is unjust. I really do want you to take a moment to try to imagine the agony Hitler must have been in for the last few decades. But think about the fact that it will go on forever. I think many people dismiss this out of hand, and they really do fail to comprehend how long forever is.

You could tell me there is a man who went from planet to planet, torturing and slaughtering every species he found there, and he did this for hundreds of planets for years and years. He would not deserve an infinite punishment. Infinite punishments are always infinitely more terrible than the crimes. There is no justice there.

Maybe its not justice, maybe its a consequence. For example, if you said to your kids don't do crystal meth because it will actually burn holes in your brain and you will be permanently brain damaged and they do it anyway that's a consequence.
A consequence that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

I think the problem is that everyone arguing for Hell is assuming God "works in mysterious ways", and that we cannot hope to conceive, with our pathetic human minds, of his infinite wisdom. You're making faith-based assumptions that even if Hell doesn't make sense to us, it's all justified because God has some ultimate sense of ethics. But faith can't be used in a debate. Evidence and logic must be used. So stop quoting the Bible and assuming God knows what's best. All I'm allowing you to assume is that Hell exists, for the purpose of this debate. You aren't allowed to assume God has good reasons for sending people there. You must prove he has good reasons.

ttruscott, you say the whole point is love. That we should learn to become loving people without being coerced. But why should we need to love God to be loving people? I love my family and close friends, not because I've been coerced, but because I know them and have deep emotional investment in them because I see the good in them. I don't love anyone who I simply don't see enough good qualities in or who I don't know well enough. Love based on faith isn't meaningful, it's just silly.

But the point I'm trying to make is that even if we are "meant" to become loving, why exactly do we have to love God? Why is God forcing us to love him? Wouldn't it be more logical to teach us how to decide whom to love, instead of forcing us to love God because he is God?

As for AdHoc's argument that Hell is a consequence, not justice...the problem is it's only a consequence because God makes it one. If you do drugs, you have to accept the consequences because drugs poison you. It's unavoidable. But God is choosing to make Hell a consequence. If I went around slapping people when they used improper grammar, for example, no one would simply put up with it because I told them "you have to accept the consequences of your actions". I'm punishing them, and it's unjust. We don't send ourselves to Hell with our actions. We take action on Earth, those actions have consequences on Earth, and then God sends us to Hell. My point is he is unjustified in doing this.

My problem is that those who are arguing for the justification of Hell are muddling the issue by telling me what God wants us to do, and how he makes us do it. That's not the point of the debate. I'm going to reiterate the question this debate is focusing on:

Is it justifiable to punish people with infinite torture for finite actions that we commit, simply because God doesn't want us to take those actions?

I would also make the argument that simply because God created us and has more power than us doesn't mean he's justified in torturing and abusing us. Parents may create a child, and they may be responsible for teaching the child right and wrong, and punishing it fairly if necessary, but they are servicing the child. They aren't allowed to torture or kill the child simply because they created it. They don't own the child.

As with most such speculative matters, we do not claim to know the answers, and we leave them to God.

Or, in its shorter form: "We trust God."

Or we could act rationally and dismiss such speculations, including the existence of the Christian tripartite God, as mindless nonsense.

We could see the false doctrine of Heaven and Hell for what it really is...a Carrot and a Stick...tools of control, to suppress and to manipulate.
This method works well with Donkeys and other dumb animals.

BTW if anyone thinks I am persecuting Christianity, they are right, but it's my religious duty to do so...my personal religion demands that I attack the Abrahamic faiths relentlessly and without cessation whenever possible.
So...while the Christians feel that they can persecute atheists and gays and even other types of religionist (like Satanists) with self righteous impunity...they must remember that it works both ways...and I will show no mercy, none at all.
There can be no reconcilliation or compromise...Christianity has been almost destroyed in my nation...thanks to all the hard work of thousands of sentients..Church attendance is the lowest in the western world here in England...and we are very proud of that indeed...but we cannot rest on our Laurels we must strive on...and bring the secular crusade to every corner of this planet...freeing people from superstition fear persecution and even death or torture.

We light a candle in the darkness of dogma, we are the light bearers

We (scientists) will lead mankind to the very stars...no fake promises of an ethereal Heaven...no dire threats of eternal Hell.

I know that many people embrace religion because the culture of their nation is so twisted and dysfunctional...like that of the USA...seeking refuge from the gross consumerism...that I understand...but you do not have to choose Christianity or Islam...there are better philosophies of living.

Much as I hate to agree with Serpent Oracle, I fully agree with him on this one. During its centuries of domination in Europe, Christianity proved itself to be evil incarnate and has been called by historians "The most murderous and bloodthirsty institution ever devised by man." In addition to all the religious wars, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Witch Hunts, and the Jewish pogroms horribly tortured and killed more innocent people than the Holocaust, while calling it "God's work." Christian clergymen even wrote textbooks on methods of torture to be used by the Church. Satan, demons, and the doctrine of Original Sin are all Christian inventions used to keep the fearful and ignorant masses under Church domination. It is time it ended.

JohnPaul, while I fully agree with everything you said, I wouldn't remain unbiased if I didn't remind you that we're not debating whether or not demons, Hell, etc. exist, but whether or not Hell, if it exists, is justified.

I agree that it's simply an invention to coerce people into obeying the Church, and I agree it's time it stopped. But I can't tell the religious debaters here not to draw the focus away from the main issue without also reminding the atheist debaters not to do the same.

So just as a final reminder to everyone, we're assuming Hell exists for the purpose of this debate.

If you try to convince me that Hitler actually deserves this punishment, a punishment of far greater torment than he ever delivered to any other humans, lasting an INFINITE amount of time longer than the mere 363 million years of life he stole, then you have indeed no moral compass. I would even categorize you as dangerous or unstable. But not even you deserve Hell. No one deserves Hell. Not the Devil, not even God, who puts people there in the first place.

I suspect that you chose Hitler and the Holocaust only as a convenient example, but I believe you opened a can of worms on this one. If we define the Holocaust as evil, then we must conclude that God himself is evil, for several reasons:

1) I have been emphatically told on good authority (Orthodox Jew) that many Orthodox Jews believe that the Holocaust was God's punishment to the Jews for falling away and failing to observe all the Biblical laws given to them, and that the Jews deserved the punishment. The Nazis were simply doing "God's work" in punishing the Jews. More of God's punishment awaits them, as predicted and listed in a whole chapter of Deuteronomy.

2) God himself approves and authorizes genocide and stealing the land of people who dare to worship other Gods:

Quote:

But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee: (Deuteronomy 20:16-17)

3) The official Christian church deliberately tortured and killed more innocent people during the centuries of their domination of Europe, during the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Witch Hunts and the Jewish pogroms, than were killed by the Nazis.

4) The Holocaust did not come as a surprise to anyone who knew the history of Christianity and was paying attention. Hitler and many of the top Nazis declared their belief they were doing Jesus' will as expressed in the Bible, announced their intentions loudly and repeatedly, and were then popularly elected to power by a majority of the Christian German people. Such beliefs were deeply embedded in Christianity and had been previously expressed in the Jewish pogroms of the Middle Ages. Here is a typical extract from one of Hitler's speeches:

Quote:

My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited (Adolf Hitler, April, 1922)

I think the problem is that everyone arguing for Hell is assuming God "works in mysterious ways", and that we cannot hope to conceive, with our pathetic human minds, of his infinite wisdom. You're making faith-based assumptions that even if Hell doesn't make sense to us, it's all justified because God has some ultimate sense of ethics. But faith can't be used in a debate. Evidence and logic must be used. So stop quoting the Bible and assuming God knows what's best. All I'm allowing you to assume is that Hell exists, for the purpose of this debate. You aren't allowed to assume God has good reasons for sending people there. You must prove he has good reasons.

As for AdHoc's argument that Hell is a consequence, not justice...the problem is it's only a consequence because God makes it one. If you do drugs, you have to accept the consequences because drugs poison you. It's unavoidable. But God is choosing to make Hell a consequence. If I went around slapping people when they used improper grammar, for example, no one would simply put up with it because I told them "you have to accept the consequences of your actions". I'm punishing them, and it's unjust. We don't send ourselves to Hell with our actions. We take action on Earth, those actions have consequences on Earth, and then God sends us to Hell. My point is he is unjustified in doing this.

Since we are debating under the premise that hell is a real place and the God of the Bible is real then according to the Bible there can be no sin in God's presence. Since "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" and after death there are only two options; God's presence or hell. To escape hell a person needs a way to be free of sin and death. And of course, if you believe the Bible God provided that way.

My problem is that those who are arguing for the justification of Hell are muddling the issue by telling me what God wants us to do, and how he makes us do it. That's not the point of the debate. I'm going to reiterate the question this debate is focusing on:

Is it justifiable to punish people with infinite torture for finite actions that we commit, simply because God doesn't want us to take those actions?

Yes, because once we sin we are sinners for forever unless we are set free.

I would also make the argument that simply because God created us and has more power than us doesn't mean he's justified in torturing and abusing us. Parents may create a child, and they may be responsible for teaching the child right and wrong, and punishing it fairly if necessary, but they are servicing the child. They aren't allowed to torture or kill the child simply because they created it. They don't own the child.

We don't create children. I know where babies come from so please don't breakdown the nuts and bolts of it for me but God created our bodies to reproduce. God creates the soul and spirit.

Concerning the OP, it is important remember that “lake of sulfur” comes from Revelations, which is an intrinsically symbolic book. John points out several times in the book that the visions have meaning other than their literal meaning. Nothing in the book of Revelations should be taken literally.

Is it justifiable to punish people with infinite torture for finite actions that we commit, simply because God doesn't want us to take those actions?

Let us start by looking at what is justifiable.

What is justifiable when it comes to eternity? If hell is unjust because finite sins do not deserve infinite punishment – and by extension I assume that heaven is unjust because finite good does not deserve infinite reward – what would you is just?